Blog posts from the staff of The Daily News & The Memphis News

This year’s 15th annual Indie Memphis Film Festival saw a nearly 38 percent rise in attendance over last year’s record-setting attendance of 8,000.

Attendance this year was 11,028. And ticket and pass sales grew by more than 60 percent as well.

“From the enthusiastic support of the Memphis business community to the unprecedented increase in attendance, we couldn’t be happier with the success of this year’s festival,” said Indie Memphis executive director Erik Jambor.

Grizzlies Coach Lionel Hollins held a practice on Thanksgiving. His reasoning?
“Some teams just have a tendancy for certain things,” Hollins said Friday night, after the Griz beat the Lakers, 106-98, at FedExForum. “This group, when we take a day off, it is always pulling hair or pulling teeth (to get back into a good flow). We had to come in and practice and get some work in … I just think with this group you have to do that.”
No aruging with the results. The Grizzlies improved to an NBA-best 9-2 while dropping the Lakers to 6-7. They held a 39-28 rebounding edge and outscored — outworked — them in the paint, 40-24. Zach Randolph got his 11th double-double with 17 points and 12 rebounds. All the Griz starters reached double figures in points (Rudy Gay led with 21) and center Marc Gasol had a game-high 8 assists.
“Memphis is a really good team,” said Kobe Bryant, who scored 30 in the losing effort.
Lakers center Dwight Howard said Marc Gasol poses a “unique challenge,” adding, “He has a lot of confidence in his abilities, they find him, and he knows how to play.”
Howard finished with 7 points and Marc’s brother, Pau Gasol, scored just 6. Pau Gasol said the Lakers let the Grizzlies have their way: “They got into the heart of our defense way too many times.”

United Housing Inc. is preparing to move from its Midtown offices at 51 N. Cooper St. to 2750 Colony Park Drive, near the old Mall of Memphis site in the Oakhaven/Parkway Village area.

The nonprofit housing agency sent a letter out to partners asking for donations to aid in the move, which is tentatively scheduled for Dec. 19.

United Housing currently rents its 2,400-square-foot space on Cooper from Loeb Properties Inc. United Housing will buy its new space in south central Memphis, which measures 7,200 square feet.

“We are going to go ahead and purchase it because for a long time we’ve needed space,” said Anne Meadors, housing production manager for United Housing. “We searched all over Midtown and either everything was too expensive, or it needed so much upgrade that it wasn’t cost-effective.

Now in its 18th year of operation, United Housing targets its services to families that are underserved by the traditional homeownership industry. The organization also contributes to area redevelopment, offers homebuyer education, credit counseling and affordable lending products to low to moderate first-time homebuyers.

Meadors said the bigger space will allow United Housing to triple its classroom size and accommodate more people for its Hardest Hit Fund classes as well as Homebuyer Education counseling. The new digs will also be more comfortable for United Housing’s staff.

“Nobody has an office over here hardly, except for counseling people,” Meadors said. “Right now, it’s not really cubicles, but we’re just in a big, open room for the most part. So now we’ll be able to have our own space.”

And on Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 3 and 4, Richardson will be speaking at the City Age: The New American City conference in Kansas City, Mo., alongside Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. and several other big city mayors and thought-leaders. Richardson will share the vision for the 1.5-million-square-foot Sears Crosstown’s adaptive reuse and what it could mean to the future of Memphis’ urban core.